


National Zoo (the smallest werewolf remix)

by radialarch



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Werecats, maybe the real friends were the cats we made along the way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-12 05:56:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20559356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radialarch/pseuds/radialarch
Summary: thanks to gdgdbaby for looking this over ♥





	National Zoo (the smallest werewolf remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [persuna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/persuna/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Littlest Werewolf goes to the White House](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13574697) by [persuna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/persuna/pseuds/persuna). 

> thanks to gdgdbaby for looking this over ♥

The worst thing about occasionally being a cat is that usually, when people find out about it, Lovett doesn’t have any fucking pants on.

Okay, so some people would say that he shouldn’t have been naked in the West Wing in the first place, but those people don’t understand the stress of turning out a speech for the president in the next 48 hours. Sometimes a guy’s gotta get his thoughts together, and the best way to do that, for Lovett, has always been taking a quick nap.

“While you’re a _cat_?” says Jon, voice distinctly squeaky. It would be funny if Lovett weren’t, again, pantless.

“How is this a surprise?” Lovett demands, “I put it on like a million forms,” and finally manages to free his clothes from beneath his desk. One of his sleeves had actually been wedged under a stubby desk leg, which Lovett’s pretty sure should be physically impossible. At least now he feels less exposed, wriggling hastily into the pants and frantically attacking his shirt buttons. Fuck, there are so many of them.

And there’s definitely cat hair on his collar. Briefly, Lovett contemplates every single time his mom told him to pick clothes to match his coloring. Twenty years of lectures, and he couldn’t have listened just once?

“What forms?” Jon says, bewildered. “I thought you’d tell me anything I need to know.”

And boy, does that plaintive note make Lovett feel like shit. The thing is, it’s just not something Lovett tends to talk about. He doesn’t _lie_ if people ask, but - well, people don’t go around asking, do they. And there are parts of himself that Lovett doesn’t believe in hiding, that he puts out there because it’s important, but the cat thing always makes him feel like something sharp is coming for his proverbial underbelly, and that’s not fair, either.

“Okay,” Lovett says, “well, I guess now you know,” like a complete fucking asshole, and shoves past Jon out of the office. 

He’s still on a deadline, and he really needs another Diet Coke.

* * *

There aren’t actually that many werecats in America. The country’s always been more prone to werewolves and werecoyotes and every other type of canid. The cat variety, for some reason, never really caught on. Lovett’s grandpa used to talk about it like he was tapping into some deep, sacred tradition, but the guilt was never enough to edge out the annoyance Lovett felt at the inevitable mouthful of fur every full moon.

Still, Lovett cares enough to say, “_What the fuck_,” when Jon asks, “So is that why you don’t drink regular Coke?”

“What kind of question is that?” Lovett says. “Aren’t you supposed to be sensitive to cross-species issues? I’m pretty sure there were memos about this kind of thing.”

“Sorry!” Jon says. “I didn’t mean- look, the websites were kind of unclear, but I don’t know if some sugars could be bad for-” He flounders, waving a hand vaguely over at Lovett. “You know.”

“Bad for gay Jews from Long Island?” Lovett says, “yeah, absolutely,” and then relents a little. Jon’s being weird about this, but it’s not like he’s the first. “No, that’s not why, don’t believe everything on the internet. Just don’t keep catnip in your office and we’ll be fine.”

“No catnip,” Jon says with palpable relief. “Okay, good to know. Yeah, that’s- yeah.”

Lovett throws a hard stare at Jon. “What is happening,” he says. “Are you trying to _detox the office_ for cats? Tell me that’s not what’s happening, I’m gonna be mad.”

“I want the office to be safe!” Jon says. “You never said anything, so how was I supposed to know?”

“Well, I _obviously _would have told you if you were _poisoning me with your office decor_,” Lovett shouts. “What the hell!”

“Okay, well, I thought it was _obvious_ to tell your friend that you’re a cat,” Jon snaps back, “so I guess neither of us are doing great on the communication front, are we?”

This time, it’s Jon who stomps away first. Lovett goes down to the canteen, devours a plate of fries the size of his head, and, after all of that, still feels fucking terrible.

* * *

Tommy ambushes Lovett on a Monday morning, which is, frankly, dirty pool.

“Can you and Jon stop fighting?” he says, like that’s a reasonable thing to ask anyone, and plops a file folder onto Lovett’s desk. “He keeps trying to talk about it. I’m _busy_, man.”

“Oh, so this is my fault now?” Lovett snarls. “_He’s_ the one being unreasonable. I’m just trying to live my life, you know, like any normal person-”

“For fuck’s- just read the file, asshole, I had to dig it up from like five years worth of stuff.”

Lovett reads the file. It’s a lot of printouts on werewolves, for some reason. Some of the papers have Jon’s writing scrawled all over the margins, _no bread_ and _silver ok_ and _need more curtains? ask Tom_.

“What is this,” Lovett says, even though he’s starting to get a sinking feeling. “Why do I care about your curtains?”

“You care,” Tommy says with exaggerated emphasis, “because Jon wrote all those when he found out about _me_.”

Lovett looks at Tommy. Really looks at him, at his big frame and weird silver-blond hair and, now that Lovett’s thinking about it, a scattering of fine fur around his collar. _He’s_ definitely done some color matching, it looks like. Fran Lovett would be proud.

“You’re a wolf,” Lovett says.

“Yep.”

Lovett chews on the inside of his lip. “So now Jon’s making a weird file about me,” he says slowly. “Because I’m-” and he nearly swallows back the words, makes himself say them out loud- “a werecat.”

“I know,” says Tommy, the dick, and performatively wrinkles his nose. “You stink, it’s kinda hard not to notice.”

Lovett had thought Tommy just wore really strong cologne. 

“I would’ve figured it out eventually,” he grumbles, and gives Tommy his file back. “So your point is, what? That Jon makes weird files about everyone?”

“No,” Tommy says, and gives Lovett a look that registers, in some deep, primal part of Lovett’s brain, as a _warning_. “Just his friends.”

* * *

Lovett had a hard time making friends until he went to college, and even then he never told anyone about the cat thing. At least there’d been a Queer Straight Alliance at Williams. The campus center put on a lot of panels on aspects of student life, but none of them had been “How to Talk About Your Cat (The Cat Is You).” In the end, he’d decided that it was something people didn’t need to know. 

No one had _wanted_ to know, before.

Jon’s hunched over his laptop and a latte when Lovett finds him in a Starbucks. He’d had to spend a buck fifty on a vending machine on the way over, which is a sacrifice Jon had better appreciate.

“If you really have to know,” Lovett tells him, plunking himself down into the seat across from him. “I mostly change for quick naps, but full moon, still a big deal for us. Catnip, you already know about. I don’t like people petting me on the head, but sometimes a good scratch down the back is nice.” He cracks open the Coke he brought over, takes a sip, and shudders. “It just tastes gross,” he says, and pushes the bottle over. “That good enough for you?”

Jon stares at him for a minute, and then cracks a smile. It’s really disgusting how much Lovett likes seeing that smile on him. “So do you purr?” he asks. “Meow? Should I be shelling out for a white noise machine for the office?”

“Shut up,” Lovett says with feeling, and steals Jon’s coffee. Jon’s still grinning when Lovett adds, low under his breath, “Maybe you’ll find out.”


End file.
